Janelle Monae will star in season 2 of Sam Esmail’s Homecoming at Amazon.

She is the new series lead following Julia Roberts’ leading turn in the first season. Roberts only had a deal to star in one season of the show and will remain on as an executive producer.

It is unknown if the series’ other stars, such as Stephan James, Shea Whigham, Sissy Spacek and Bobby Cannavale will return for Season 2 or not. The series was ordered for two seasons initially, with the idea that a second season would have to deviate from its source material, the Gimlet Media podcast of the same name. This will be Monae’s first major TV role after she appeared in an episode of Amazon’s anthology series, Electric Dreams. 

Not much is known about Monae’s character or the season 2 plot, but we do know that the character is a “tenacious woman who finds herself floating in a canoe, with no memory of how she got there — or even who she is.”

The description of Season 1 reads: In Homecoming, Roberts is Heidi Bergman, a caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, which is a Geist Group facility helping soldiers transition back to civilian life. Walter Cruz (James) is one of these soldiers, eager to begin the next phase of his life. Overseeing Heidi and the facility is Colin Belfast (Bobby Cannavale), an ambitious company man whose manic demands point to questionable motives. Four years later, Heidi has started a new life, living with her mother (Sissy Spacek) and working as a small-town waitress, when a Department of Defense auditor (Shea Whigham) comes to her with questions about why she left the Homecoming facility. Heidi begins to realize that there’s a whole other story behind the story she’s been telling herself.

Both Roberts and James have been noted as major Emmy snubs coming off of last week’s announcements.

The second season is expected to debut on Amazon in 2020. The half-hour drama is from Mr. Robot creator Esmail, with Anonymous Content and Universal Cable Productions.

 

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